Photo Albums

Noteworthy Photography

Burning Flags PressThe website of Glen E. Friedman. Renowned for both his work with musicians like Fugazi, Minor Threat, Public Enemy, the Beastie Boys, Slayer (and many, many more) as well as his groundbreaking documentation of the burgeoning skateboard phenomenon in the late `70's, Glen has been privvy to (and has summarily captured on film) some of the coolest stuff ever. He's also an incredibly insightful and nice guy to boot.

SoHo Blues - Photography by Allan TannenbaumAllan Tannenbaum is a local photographer who has been everywhere and shot everything, from members of Blondie hanging out at the Mudd Club through the collapsing towers of the World Trade Center on September 11th. You could spend hours on this site, and I have.

Robert Otter PhotographsAmazing vintage photographs of New York City, specifically my own neighborhood, Greenwich Village.

Big Laughs

The Weblog of Spumco's John K.The weblog of cartoonist John Kricfalusi, crazed mind and frantic pencil behind the original "Ren & Stimpy," as well as "The Goddamn George Liquor Show." Surreal, unapologetic, uncompromising genius.

June 11, 2018

Les Halles on Park Avenue South, where Anthony Bourdain famously worked as a chef, has been closed since 2016, and the space it once occupied has been dormant since shuttering in March of that year.

Since news broke on Friday of Bourdain's passing, mourners have been leaving flowers, notes and mementos in a makeshift memorial. My kids' school is a couple of blocks away. After dropping them off this morning, I looped back around to the former Les Halles to take a look.

June 08, 2018

It pains me that apart from a few passing allusions to the man, I only really devoted one single post to Anthony Bourdain in this blog’s almost-thirteen-year existence, that post being a cheekily petty potshot at him for supporting a fellow chef’s dubiously named (and since shuttered) venture. In all truth, Anthony Bourdain was a bona fide hero of mine. His style was the perfect blend of smart, funny, cool, discriminating and outspoken, and he was a master storyteller and, obviously, pretty handy in the kitchen. Beyond being cool, funny and insouciant, he wrote from the heart, spoke truth to power and was a frequent champion of the underdog. He was a tireless advocate for doing, seeing and trying new things and broadening horizons. News of his suicide, this morning, completely took the wind out of my sails. I’m sure I’m not alone, in that capacity.

Like most, I first came across Bourdain via his now-iconic culinary tell-all, “Kitchen Confidential” at some point in the `90s. While a great read by any standard, having toiled for several summers as a dish-dog in the rear kitchen of the Westhampton iteration of The Barefoot Contessa (long gone), I immediately warmed to not only Bourdain’s acerbic wit, but could completely relate to the context. He captured the dynamic perfectly, but also lifted the veil on a whole culture. Dare I suggest it, Anthony Bourdain –- more so than any other so-called “celebrity chef” -– single-handedly made working in the food industry credibly cool.

His star continued to ascend from there, of course, and I was totally onboard. I dutifully dined in homage at Les Halles on Park Avenue South (his former employer), and followed his trajectory like a fanboy, snapping up each successive book of essays, and even his first weighty cookbook. I even picked up his first crime novel, which was just as entertaining as you’d expect. Shortly afterwards, television snatched him up and he was off and running on a number of different series for various channels until he landed the gig at CNN.

And now, he’s gone. This larger-than-life character who seemed to lead such a singularly charmed, remarkable life, and who spoke so candidly and eloquently, and with such a zest for experience -– takes his own life. It is yet another testament, let alone in the same week as fashion favorite Kate Spade, that we should not be so quick to trust our preconceptions. Fame is clearly no panacea for depression.

As I noted when Chris Cornell of Soundgarden took his own life last year, the knee-jerk reaction upon hearing about such fatalities is “how could they have done this to their own children?” That unanswerable question might lead many to label the act callous and selfish, but as far as I’m concerned, it only underscores the magnitude of the pain the individual must have been in to pursue that otherwise unthinkable path.

I don’t know why Anthony Bourdain killed himself. As much as we all may feel like we knew him, we cannot begin to speculate what he was privately grappling with. I grieve for his loved ones and hope that he has attained peace and realizes how very much he will be missed.

May 03, 2018

Just a quick one. A friend of mine posted an age-old photo of ol’ Gene Simmons spitting fire on what was obviously a New York City avenue, and I recalled seeing further images from the same incident on the afore-cited Instagram page, KISS NYC. I started to wonder where that location might be. It didn’t take too long to figure it out. Here are more of the pics from the same day.

Based on the distinctive architecture of the buildings across the avenue from the car on which our Gene is perched, I rightly deduced that this all went down just below the southeast corner of Fifth Avenue and East 13th Street. Based on Gene’s garb, I’m assuming this would have been circa the Hotter Than Hell/Dressed to Kill era of the band, making it about 1974 or 1975.

About 45 years later, The First National Bank across the street is now an administrative building for The New School. At the time these original photos were taken, Gene would have been standing just south of the entrance to the Lone Star Café (although I’m not sure if it had turned into that yet, or not – replete with rooftop iguana – it may have still been the Schrafft’s ice cream parlour). Later, that spot turned into a bar called Mr. Fuji's Tropicana (discussed here), before turning into a deli, closing, gradually eroding, and then getting torn down.

Today, that corner is occupied by a pricey condo with a Brandy Mellville outlet on its ground floor (the one that was selling that curious Ramones shirt). The southern half of the block is occupied by Yeshiva University’s school of law, but I seem to remain a bar on the corner of East 12th Street. Opposite that was the building that housed Forbes Magazine, now owned by NYU.

One wonders what the KISS gents were doing in this patch of Greenwich Village, but who knows. Gene Simmons, meanwhile, is still at it, and by “it” I mean being in KISS and basically behaving like an insufferable jackass. They’re evidently about to launch a massive tour.

April 06, 2018

Was sad to learn, this morning, that long-standing bar/restaurant Live Bait on East 23rd Street has closed up shop after 31 years on that strip. It naively seemed to me like one of those places that was always going to be there. Evidently not.

I first started going back in 1989, whilst interning paylessly at SPIN Magazine just over on West 18th Street, Live Bait being one point in a triangle of arguably cheap, irresponsible inebriation that also included the Old Town Bar & Grill (still there) and 119 Bar on East 15th (now a theme-belabored douche-factory called Headless Horseman). I also remember noting that Live Bait's signature neon signage could always be clearly seen from the observation deck of the Empire State building that loomed over it from ten blocks away.

The last time I was in Live Bait would have been 2016, when I was knocking back beers before joining other grizzled, greying punk dads to go see OFF! at the Gramercy Theatre just down the road a piece.

In any case, the company that owns this block-long Star Destroyer, Extell, have cheekily christened the complex with a new moniker. They're calling it "EVGB" …. GEDDIT??

An acronym for the "East Village's Greatest Building," it's ultimately yet another low-browed allusion to the storied legacy of CBGB over on the Bowery.

Now, before you roll your own eyes and get all exasperated at me, rest assured that I'm not about to lapse into another tear-stained eulogy for the fabled club in question. That's been handled here, way more than enough times.

February 23, 2018

As expressed back on this old post, I've always had something of a complicated love/hate relationship with New York Magazine. On the one hand, given my lifelong adoration of this city and my strenuously arguable skills as an ersatz writer, it seemed -- for a little while, at least -- like the perfect place for me to end up, although -- of course -- that never happened. The closest I came was getting a photograph reproduced in their Approval Matrix in 2014. I certainly applied for jobs there, over the years, and badgered contacts who'd penetrated its confines, but nothing ever panned out, alas. Either I wasn't right for the gigs in question or, more likely, they just weren't interested in what I was pushing. Oh well.

On the other hand, however, the magazine has always exuded a level of ersatz-sophisto smarm that has rubbed several people the wrong way. More to the point, they've editorially mishandled enough topics over the years, to my mind, to render themselves utterly devoid of any real semblance of credibility. After a certain point, the wife and I cancelled our subscription. I can't say I've paged through an issue in at least four or five years.

But, y'know, times change. While tactile print magazines are going the way of the wooly mammoth, many hackneyed periodicals have found a way to reinvent themselves on the web. For all intents and purposes, New York may have done just that, but I don't know. I still don't make a point of reading it. That all said, I spied one article (with accompanying video) this week that caught my eye, and thought I'd share it here.

My only problem with the clip (watch it below) is the folks they chose to poll on the subject. With the exception of venerable old Michael Musto (and I'm dead sure he'd positively wince at the thought of being branded "venerable"), I'm not really moved by the participants here. I mean, I'm not begrudging the contributions from Alex and Zach Frankel (although their second answer towards the end of the clip is incomprehensible to my ears) or Stretch Armstrong, but I didn't find any of their answers especially illuminating (nor, for that matter, was Musto's suggestion of bringing the Mudd Club back from the dead especially a revelation). At the risk of being perceived to besmirch her further, I was neither surprised nor particularly enthused to hear Lizzie Goodman cite Brownie's as the place she'd bring back. Not exactly a shocker, given the crux of her most celebrated work.

But, y'know, I'm ultimately an opinionated snob and this is essentially just a flimsy device to make Absolut Vodka seem hip (did it need help?), so none of it really matters that much. At the same time, I do like the concept. Enough of my yappin' …. Watch the clip:

My grievance here is that the idea of bringing back NYC establishments isn't just as simple as reinstating them. To make the Mudd Club special again, you'd first have to depose everyone who currently lives at 77 White Street, which has, in more recent decades, because a pricey condo. But, more to the point, what made places like the Mudd Club -- and, to that same end, the other clubs mentioned in the clip, notably Nell's, the Palladium and the Tunnel -- so significant were the sensibilities, the cultures and the eras in which they were thriving. A Mudd Club on the White Street of 2018 wouldn't make any sense. But, perhaps I'm overthinking this.

February 10, 2018

Hopefully she’s not reading this blog right now, but we’re going to a surprise party, this evening, for a friend at Automatic Slim’s in the West Village. I did a double-take when my wife told me where we were headed. While not quite “regulars,” myself and a select coterie of like-minded idiots used to frequently darken the doors of this establishment throughout the 90’s, although I cannot say I’ve been since the dawn of the new millennium. I snapped the photo of its signature corner-occupying entry way (with a great, big, fuck-off wide-angle lens) in about 1998, or so.

Evidently, they serve food at Automatic Slims, which is something that never occurred to me, as my associations with the place inexorably involve heroic amounts of ill-advised beverages, and precious little else. In fact, I want to say the last time I was in the place, I was forced to imbibe a veritable flotilla of shots by my friends Rob B. & Rob C., only to ascend from my seat some twenty minutes later, and wordlessly exit the establishment without notifying any of my compatriots. Somehow I made it home, only to throw up with a robust sense of purpose. Yeah, that was lovely. One assumes this evening will be slightly different.

My other pervading memory of nights at Automatic Slim’s involves some framed prints of Iggy and the Stooges and the New York Dolls that were hung about its walls, at some point, in the late 90’s. The magnificence of same had myself and my friend Rob D. drunkenly conspiring to somehow make-off with one of them whilst the barkeep was distracted. In a rare moment of wisdom, we demurred from this half-baked endeavor, but it was not as stealthy an instant of clear, common sense and considerate good-will as it should have been. He and I had a similar quandary regarding a framed Ramones photograph at (long-since-vanished) Wowsville on Second Avenue about year later (you can read that tragic saga here).

February 05, 2018

January 30, 2018

Sorry for the relative slowdown. It’s been a crazy couple of weeks. Work has been somewhat hectic, my daughter’s in the process of deciding which high school she’s going to attend and we had a couple of near-misses on a new apartment. That said, the New York City real estate scene can be a perilous hotbed of nasty duplicity, as we’re finding out first-hand. Not that we didn’t already know that, but we had an unfortuante encounter, recently, wherein we really got our hopes up about a potential new space, only to see those hopes dashed by some frankly shady bullshit. In any case, we have way too much going on.

I had been working on a post based on a truly surreal evening on Ludlow Street last week, but that will have to wait for a bit. Suffice to say, if, like me, you harbor a fondness for the era of Ludlow Street marked by ventures like the original Max Fish, the Luna Lounge, the Pink Pony Café, the original Barramundi, the Cake Shop and Motor City, you would do well to avoid the current iteration of that storied street. Also, if you’re only attending a function ostensibly as someone’s plus one, it’s probably best not to get into a big, heated music dispute and, evidently, ruin someone’s evening by showing them up. Yeah, I did that. Oops.

Also, remember back in early January when I posted about undertaking Dry January in the hopes of combating the “weak-willed shit” that typically decimates my resolve? Well, guess who was blown off that pompous horse after only five days? I was. The so-called “bomb cyclone” put an end to my Dry January in embarrassingly stealthy order. As such, haunted by both that failure and a need to curtail our spending habits, I am looking to undertake what I am referring to as Austere February. Sounds like a barrel of laughs, don’t it? Needs must, as the idiom goes. Watch this space.

But enough of my silly bullshit. I spotted this on the Instagram page of the Brooklyn Bridge (who knew it had one?) and thought I’d share it here. I strenuously doubt our David ever rocked this particular garment whilst on the bridge in question, thus I surmise that this image is the work of some deft photoshopping. It also came appended with a quote.

"I realized the other day that I've lived in New York longer than I've lived anywhere else. It's amazing: I am a New Yorker. It's strange; I never thought I would be." -- David Bowie

Now, while I'm not normally in the habit of casting doubt about anything David Bowie would have said, just because he lived here longer than anywhere else in his life, did that, in face, render him a bona fide New Yorker? What say you?

January 22, 2018

For no big reason other than that my wife was in the mood for Middle Eastern food last night, we actually left the neighborhood to go to a certain Turkish restaurant in the Murray Hill area, not far from our kids’ school. The Mrs. & I had gone to this place several times in the mid-2000’s, but hadn’t been back in quite some time, despite the fact that the restaurant scrupulously sends special birthday coupons to us every year. In any case, we’d had quite a few memorable meals there back in those days, so we figured we’d give it a go again, and introduce the kids to it.

For a Sunday night, though, something seemed not quite right. We got there about 5:30 pm, and there was a steady influx of patrons as the evening went on, but the staff seemed strangely harried in a manner not unlike the more stressful episodes of “Fawlty Towers.” It took forever to get menus, one drink order went hilariously awry, and, when the bill came, we were duly informed that if we intended to pay by credit card (we did), we’d probably have to wait “around twenty minutes” for the transaction to go through, as they were evidently having some variety of wifi trouble. This all said, when we did get our food, it was refreshingly excellent, so I overlooked all that, popped out to an ATM, and settled up in cash.

There was another peculiar thing about the dining experience, however, that added an extra layer of surreal tragicomedy. I’d noticed, when we sat down, that the sound system was playing a sort of piano-loungey rendition of “Laura,” an old jazz standard by Johnny Mercer & David Raskin, later popularized by Frank Sinatra and a few others. You might know it if you heard it. It’s a reasonably innocuous entry in the great American Songbook, dating back to the mid-40’s, originally tethered to a movie of the same name. The lyrics are about the charms of an elusive dream girl. This particular version featured what sounded like a somewhat incongruous children’s choir on the chorus, warbling certain notes that struck my ear rather distinctively.

As the evening went on, though, I noticed that it was either a very lengthy version of the song, or that –- more likely -– it was being played again. And again. And again. And again. As we waited for our first round of drinks, it played. ”Oh Laura is a face in the misty light….” As we got our first round of hummus, bread and a dish called the Shepherd’s Salad, it continued. ”Footsteps, that you hear down the hall….” As I was admonishing my 11-year-old for dropping his fork a second time, “Laura” continued trilling.”She gave the very first kiss to you….” It scored the arrival of our entrees –- some chicken dish I can't recall the name of and a family-style donner kebab. ”That was Laura, ….but she’s only a dream….” It continued its tireless siren song as the kids tried baklava for the first time, and I burned my tongue on the coffee. ”Oh Laura is a face in the misty light…” It chimed ceaselessly in the background as we conferred about the restaurant’s WiFi problems, and how that was going to affect our preferred method of payment. ”She gave the very first kiss to you….”. It never stopped. It’s probably still playing right now.

More than any other quirk in a dining experience rife with quirks, it really puzzled the Hell out of me. Surely, I can’t be the only person that was noticing, right? I looked around at the other tables and at other patrons. No one seemed struck by it. I looked at the wait staff –- surely they must be aware of it, no? After all, we were only going to be there for about an hour and a half, but they were stuck there all night. They’ve got to notice it. They certainly looked tense, but that might have had something to do with the payment issue that was creating a little bit of drama at each table.

But the idea of listening to only a single song again and again and again and again and again…. even at a relatively unobtrusive volume felt like the slow boat to madness. What at first seemed curious turned amusing and then became laborious. Then it became funny again. Reassured that, despite the hurdle of not being able to pay by credit card, I was going to be able to leave after I plonked down some cash –- thus freeing myself and my family from yet another lulling airing of “Laura,” my hope and humor was restored. But had we had to wait those twenty (or so) minutes for the credit card machine to maybe work, I might have thrown a spoke and plunged headlong into insanity. ”Oh Laura is a face in the misty light….footsteps that you hear down the hall…”

On our way out, after I’d earned the good cheer of our waitress for paying in cash, thus sparing her from further self-flagellation, I leaned over to her to inform her about the evident glitch on their music playlist. “Oh,you are enjoying it, yes?” She didn’t seem to understand my point. “It’s fine, but it’s playing the same song over and over again,” I tried to point out. “Oh, no, sir,” she chuckled, “I promise you it’s not.” I decided to let her find out for herself. Or not. Either way, I had to get out of there.

As I was dropping off the kids at school around the corner from this restaurant this morning, I was fleetingly tempted to stop in and see if it was still going, but thought better of it. They probably weren’t open, anyway.

Incidentally, the only reason I know this particular song is because of Spike Jones’ irreverent version, which is still pretty damn funny. Stick with it, it really gets going after 1:24.